Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Views on Krazy Kat Herriman

1 [1930s]Summer Ritual. Daughter Toots Herriman dancing on the beach with father George.

‘No
country has produced, in the narrow limits of this medium, a fantastic
philosopher such as George Herriman. Herriman’s work is curiously
distinguished; I can find no precedent either for its kind of invention
or its graphical style. To an extreme sensibility of touch, a wistful
ironic humour, he adds something more — some subtle understanding of
human susceptibility of which he alone, beside Chaplin, is possessed.’ — Paul Nash, in The Week-end Review, London 1931

NASH.Britishillustrator, war artist, woodcut revivalist, painter and art critic Paul Nash (b.1889) paid his first visit to the US in 1931. He had a lot in common with Krazy Kat author George Herriman (b.1880), ‘the geometric order of nature’ was just one of his interests. The Week-end Review — subtitled: “of Politics, Books, The Theatre, Art and Music” — was a successful little London paper edited by Gerald Reid Barry, published in 1930-34.

5 [1944] Comedy or Drama or — Opera. This Krazy Kat comic strip is published Wednesday April 26, the day after Herriman died.

6 [1944] The Cop said Go. But due to the advance stock, the very last Krazy Kat daily strip appeared on June 3, and the very last Sunday page on June 25.

★

THANKS TORick MarschallHeritage AuctionsBill GreenwellMarc Voline

[3] The 1922 strip about Herriman wearing a flat straw hat — a skimmer — was found by Rick Marschall and included in his book series The Komplete Kolor Krazy Kat (1990).

[1] The photo of Herriman in the same hat comes from a book by Patrick McDonnell, Karen O’Connell and Georgia Riley de Havenon, Krazy Kat; The Comic Art of George Herriman (1986).[2] The Paul Nash quote from a 1931 issue of the Week-end Review comes from the reprinted text in the New York Sun, August 19, 1931, where Nash’s article is titled ‘American Comics, a Foreign Appraisal of the Masters of Humorous Pencils’. Read more about the Week-end Review in Bill Greenwell’s satirical poetry project HERE.

[4] The original color drawing of the Krazy Kat cast was auctioned on August 27, 2015, by Heritage Auctions — ‘The World’s Largest Collectibles Auctioneer’ — see HERE.

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Cartoonist, illustrator, storyteller, born in Nelson, B.C. in May 1950, has contributed to Chronicle, Weirdom, and Visions fanzines. John illustrated ‘Ronald and the Dragon’ by Lawrie Peters in 1975. Email: adcock34@gmail.com